


something borrowed

by fruectose



Series: from the corners of my brain [6]
Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-18
Updated: 2020-08-18
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:22:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25977394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fruectose/pseuds/fruectose
Summary: some heartbreaks are worth it
Relationships: Annabeth Chase/Percy Jackson
Series: from the corners of my brain [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1826065
Comments: 1
Kudos: 52





	something borrowed

The problem with dating a boy you’ve grown up with is that you never can quite mark all of your _firsts_. There’s no big milestones of the relationship- no first dates or first time meeting the family. Annabeth can’t even remember her first impression of him. They do share a few other firsts, though- she clings desperately on to those, celebrates them on her own, in her mind, as best as she can. Memories that she replays in her mind every so often so she knows that this is real, that what she has is true. Their first kiss, frantic and panicked- _please_ , she’d wanted to beg, _choose me back_. Their _first I love you_ , whispered during AP history with Mrs. Kerr with flushed cheeks and a wide grin. Their first time getting caught in the act- by Annabeth’s brother, who’d blackmailed them for seven months since.

Today is the first time Percy Jackson breaks Annabeth’s heart.

It isn’t anything he does or says, really. They’re in her room right now, Percy on her chair with his legs propped up on the edge of her desk and Annabeth on her bed, flicking through a textbook and pretending to study. Except for the mellow tunes from her wind down playlist, there’s silence; the comfortable kind. The kind where she can watch her boyfriend while he repeatedly bounces a blue ping pong ball off her wall and catches it, and he wouldn’t squirm under her gaze.

She wonders if he realizes how beautiful he is- and even if he did (which Annabeth seriously doubts), if he would believe it. Her fingers tingle with how much she wants to run her hands through his hair. She can lie there forever, she thinks- on her tummy, learning nothing of English Lit but how the concentration in Percy’s brow and the tension in his Adam’s apple when he swallows are far more poetic than any Frost or Wordsworth will ever describe.

He must feel her staring- she’d be surprised if he hadn’t felt her gaze boring into his soul- because he drops the ball and turns to meet her gaze.

There’s another first Annabeth wishes she’d remembered- the first time she’d looked into those sea green eyes, sharp and bright and full of mischief, and fallen in love. They’d been six years old, then, too young for Annabeth to have appreciated the butterflies in her tummy. Too young to know that she could, if she wanted (and therefore had done), scowl at him and demand he leave her alone- but that wouldn’t matter, because now that she’d met Percy, she’d never be alone again. For twelve years, he stayed by her side, she thinks. Her heart is ready to explode.

She wishes she remembered what she’d thought when she saw him, seven and quiet but also seemingly looking for a fight. It doesn’t matter, though, that her memory fails her, because he looks at her now, one thick, dark brow raised and eyes sparkling with laughter and it really _doesn’t matter_ what she’d felt before. Annabeth is light-headed and in love _now_ , and that’s the only thing in the world that means anything.

“Stop staring at me. You’re being weird.” Percy says. She knows, on some level, that she should snap out of it, be present and live in the moment, but she doesn’t want to quite leave her daydream yet.

Her heart is so full when she thinks about how his fingers feel, tangled with hers, and how free she is when he lifts her off her feet and kisses her like nothing else matters. She’s seen Percy Jackson in every terrible state- absolutely livid and grumpy and ill and everything in between, and she can’t see a moment in time, a glitch in the matrix, where she doesn’t wholeheartedly through it all. Her chest constricts and she aches when she looks at him because there are no words for what her body and mind go through every time he looks at her, so full of affection. It’s not _that_ she loves him, really. It’s the _way_ she loves him- purely and irrevocably and so, _so_ stupidly- that she just knows:

“You’re going to break my heart one day, Jackson.” She tells him. She doesn’t even try to hide the grin on her lips because she wants, more than anything, to throw caution to the wind. Who cares, she thinks, if she hurts over him some day? They have magic today. The future will wait.

Percy doesn’t move. He studies her for a moment. The humor lingers in his face, and she half expects him to make a joke out of it. She wouldn’t really mind, either. She’d meant her words but she doesn’t expect to launch into a conversation about their relationship and what comes next. They have fun, Percy and Annabeth; like they’ve always done, like they always are. Like, she hopes, the always will.

“Will it hurt?” He asks instead. Annabeth can’t bear to look at him in that moment. Her whole body burns with her love for him and basking in the glow of his attention will only set her on fire. She turns over onto her back and stares up at the ceiling, his expression- quiet and steady- branded into her mind. He is curious, because for now, that he will break her heart at all is a hypothetical. Annabeth considers it.

“Yes.”

“And you’ll let me, anyway?”

There is shuffling and she hears him crossing her room. The bed dips when he crawls onto her bed and lies down beside her. She sneaks a glance at him, but he is watching the ceiling also.

“I guess so.”

Annabeth doesn’t want to tell him it’s too late. That any end at all is an end she isn’t prepared for, won’t ever be prepared for. The only way her future is painless is if he remains with her. Forever. How can she say that, though, to a teenager whose only just begun his life?

Percy is quiet the way only Percy can be. She can sense him thinking, feeling, contemplating beside her. His arm shifts, only a couple of inches, until his fingertips brush ever so gently against hers.

“I’d let you break my heart, too.” He catches her by surprise. She looks over at him again, but his eyes are closed.

“Do you think I would?” Annabeth is embarrassed by how timid she sounds. She looks down at her hands, half expecting to see Percy’s heart there, fragile, tender, smooth and unharmed by cruelty of people and fate alike- resilient but soft, Percy’s essence itself. It hadn’t occurred to her that she held his love, pure and unscarred, just as she’d thrown hers in his arms without a care in the world.

“No.” Percy finally opens his eyes and looks at her. He is honest. “I don’t think you will.”

“And you?” Annabeth pushes.

“Not for as long as it would hurt.” It’s a terrible promise, impossible to keep and she knows it.

“And when it doesn’t?”

“It always will.”

“How do you know?”

“The same way you do.” A silent promise, she thinks. The idea of an evermore, _together_. If he can’t keep his word, she’ll love him for trying. And he will, she’s sure- try. And that’s all she needs for now.

Percy’s fingers finally find hers and curl around them. He scooches over until his shoulder is pressed against hers and grins. _I love you_ , Annabeth thinks for the seven thousandth time in that moment. _I love you, more than anyone else in the world_.

Annabeth’s chest tightens and she’s happy in the same way she feels weighed down. It’s bittersweet, she thinks, to hand over a part of yourself so delicate to someone else. She trusts Percy with every fiber in her body- there is nobody better equipped for the job- but she feels her heart grow its first scar anyway.

Her boyfriend is her best friend. He is adventure and mystery and romance. He is every song she’s sang and every flower she’s picked and every sunny day. Her emotions are so strong they cause her physical pain. Maybe if she understood love better, she wouldn’t feel like she’s drowning in it. Again, maybe if she felt it less, her heart wouldn’t be slowly breaking for the boy beside her. She wonders if its normal, to be so in love, so sure of someone, that

“I feel full.” She tells him with a small smile. He leans over and pecks her on the lips.

“Good.” He replies, and somewhere in her mind, her heart and her soul, she knows that Percy Jackson will be her last heartbreak, too, and that makes all the difference.


End file.
